Besides pizza, I have also been on a recent kick with Thai food. And when I say recent kick, I mean I hadn’t tried Thai food until the summer of 2008 and I have been loving it ever since. I had been trying to fight the yuppie food craze and found myself accepting an invitation to eat out because I was spending the summer in a
I got more than I bargained for that night. First, I experienced a delicious Pad Thai entrée. Then I found out the Gin Blossoms were playing a free concert in a local casino (which turned out to be a massive pull-barn with a ridiculous amount of Slot Machines . . . I guess the Gin Blossoms weren’t kidding when they said they’d follow you down). Besides enjoying a throwback to some fine 1990s rock, I also spent the entire night as if I had just discovered a new taste bud.
Flash forward to my first year of medical school and I realized that there is actually a new taste bud. Beyond the traditional bitter, sweet, salty, and sour, scientists had recently discovered a fifth taste known as unami. Unami has been roughly translated to mean savoriness or deliciousness and is trigged by amino acids such as glutamate (the base amino acid for MSG). According to our friends at wikipedia “Savoriness is considered a fundamental taste in Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Korean cooking,” (that was the first time I quoted wikipedia in my writing, and I feel dirty . . . I think I need to shower).
Apparently, the Chinese restaurant I grew up frequenting wasn’t hitting the MSG-spot like Thai food did. Because I was surely utilizing my unami receptor to its full extent while eating Thai food. Apparently, I occasionally lit up the unami light with dishes with parmesan and even beef can light it up. Salt, of course, increases the sensation of the unami which sort of explains why salt on steak (containing glutamate) enhances its deliciousness. And how.
Scientific research aside, I felt as if I had been cheated out of 24 years of eating Thai food. Now, I find myself making up for lost time and getting in line behind all the other yuppies to consume the deliciousness.
Oh, and by the way, you could pretty much say the same thing about my experience with sushi except that I have been able to resist it just a tad more thanks to its enhanced yuppiness. However, I do have to hand it to the yuppies, they sure have great unami sensors.
1 comment:
I have a really good Bosnian friend and whenever we get together she says, "Do you want me to bring a sweet or a savory dish?" It just struck me as funny because most Americans will say "Do you want me to bring a main dish, a side dish or dessert?" Since she has been asking me that I have begun using the words sweet or savory because I think they are much better descriptors.
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